Search warrants yielded methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, anabolic steroids, a cocaine conversion lab, semi-automatic handgun and a shotgun after a member of the notorious B.C.-based Red Scorpions gang and three associates were arrested following a co-ordinated series of search warrants in Red Deer County, Airdrie and Calgary.

They’re savvy, greedy and extremely violent, and now that members of the Red Scorpion gang are calling Alberta home, it’ll be tough to get them to leave, according to gang experts.

A law enforcement team recently busted four people linked to the B.C.-based gang on a number of weapons and drugs charges tied to a trafficking ring that’s been operating out of Calgary, Red Deer and Airdrie for two years.

In a news conference Monday, police called the arrests a “significant dent in this organization.” But Rob Gordon, a criminology professor and gangs expert at Simon Fraser University isn’t so sure.

“No one is ever going to shut it down,” said Gordon.

“The police know, despite all their posturing, all they’re really doing is keeping a lid on things.”

There are several reasons the Red Scorpions, a notorious gang known for its dial-a-dope lines, are drawn to Alberta. The province’s wealth means there’s a high demand for drugs, particularly in the oilpatch. But Gordon said the legalization of marijuana in Washington State is pushing gangsters eastward in search of access to states that will still import B.C. bud.

“There’s no point anymore in shipping marijuana into Washington State. It’s coming the other way.”

Retired Calgary police officer Henry Hollinger, who spent most of his 25-year career investigating local gangs the FOBs and the FKs, said there was a time when B.C. drug dealers wouldn’t cross into Alberta for fear of stiff penalties. Instead, Calgary gang members would pick up product from groups such as the Red Scorpions and United Nations in B.C., and bring it back here. But the crackdown on the FOBs and FKs meant many of those connections were lost, he said.

“They started infiltrating Calgary and Alberta to take over the gang and drug business themselves.”

Hollinger suspects the Red Scorpion presence in Alberta is minimal right now, but said it’ll be up to police and the courts to stomp it out with harsh sentencing.

“The sentences here are two or three times higher than what you get in B.C.,” he said. “This is going to be a growing problem if the police don’t kick their butts right now.”

Gordon said the Red Scorpions essentially act as a corporation, and will continue to expand as long as there’s money to be made. Members were recently raided in the Philippines for setting up a manufacturing plant there.

“If they were trading publicly, I would probably buy some shares.”

Arrests, he said, simply create a vacuum for other gangsters to move in.

Although marijuana is their cash crop, the Red Scorpions move a variety of drugs; the Alberta raids retrieved 512 grams of meth, 517 grams of cocaine and 52 grams of heroin.

In B.C., the group is known for its bloody rivalry with the United Nations, and is currently on trial for a six-person slaying known as the Surrey Six that took place in a Surrey condo in 2007.

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